I was looking at a shooting friends accessories and his patch knife has a feature on it that he couldn't explain. The 1st pic is of the knife on the table and then a close up of the questioned feature. he said he has seen this feature on several trade knifes and is unsure of its use.

The only thing I'd guess it would be for is when you twist the pillow tickin' patch from the length hangin' from possibles bag strap it slides over the twist and cuts it...purely a guess and a reachin' guess at best.

I've seen these on reproduction patch knives, I've never seen an original with that cut on it - not saying there is not one somewhere but I have not seen one. Originals do have vee and U shape cuts for decoration/personal identification but aside from this I don't feel there was any mechanical purpose for them.

__________________
"Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don't ever apologize for anything."
Harry S. Trumanmark@fire-iron.biz

The notch is purely decorative. This "patch" knife is a modern India/Pakistan knife.
There were no original "patch knives." They used whatever knife they had.
"Patch knives" are a modern idea. Never let someone sell you an "original" patch knife!

Bill is right, technically there were no original "patch knives" only because they were not called a "patch knife" but rather a:
"Bag knife" - meaning any small knife carried in or on a possibles bag. Most had a sheath sewn to the back of the bag, but some on the side or front.
"Pouch knife" - same as bag knife.
"Poke blade" - same as bag knife with "poke" being another name for "bag".
"Strap knife" - only difference here is that the sheath was sewn to the front strap of the bag, pouch or poke.

There was no set style for this type of knife, they were generally any knife with a blade shorter than 6" and most commonly 3" to 5" and single edge. "The Kentucky Rifle Hunting Pouch" contains sever dozen pictures of original bags showing attached sheaths for small knives. The small knives were not used solely for cutting patches, they were used anytime the larger hunting knife would be impractical.

__________________
"Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don't ever apologize for anything."
Harry S. Trumanmark@fire-iron.biz

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